Nearly two-thirds of Chinese cities suffered from air pollution last year and had no centralized sewage treatment facilities, state media reported on Tuesday. Only 37.6 percent of 585 cities surveyed had air quality "indicating a clean and healthy environment," down 7.3 percentage points from 2005, the China Daily said, citing a report by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). Thirty-nine cities, many scattered across the northern coal-rich province of Shanxi and China's northeastern rustbelt province of Liaoning, suffered "severe" air pollution, the paper said. "The report also found that the ratio of quality water in the major urban areas, either for drinking or industrial use, had dropped by 7.24 percent," the paper said. Two hundred cities had no "centralized sewage management system" and 187 had no garbage disposal plants, it said. ... The report comes as the capital Beijing on Tuesday was shrouded in thick smog, which local media said was exacerbated by smoke blown into the city from crop burning in neighboring provinces. On Monday night, an index measuring air pollution from Beijing's southern Daxing county read over 850 particles of "particulate matter" per square meter, which was eight times the norm, the Beijing News said.Wow... Then again, maybe the US can learn something since this quite negative news comes from China's state-run media. A generally amoral government (think: legal prison labor, legal buying/selling human organs, etc.) essentially tells it's people it's done a rotten job of regulating against pollution. That's a far cry from a government that lied to 911 rescue workers and told them that the air they were breathing was safe. That's a far cry from a government that did virtually nothing for Louisiana during the build up and even much of the aftermath of Katrina. Sure, I'm still damn glad to live in America, but our media and our government could be more upfront and honest like the, ugh, like the Chinese. Mind you, I've got nothing against the Chinese people. Of course, I do wish they would exert more pull over their government to make some moral choices, but I don't feel like I'm in a place to criticize the Chinese too much when my fellow Americans fail to lift an effective finger after two apparent fixed elections, our government fails to protect us against 911 and Katrina and getting us in to two wars that have only made the world more dangerous. It's less a problem I have with America or China as it is a problem I have with humanity.
Orignal From: CHINA SUFFERS FROM MASSIVE POLUTION
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